Budgeting for Private School -- Convince my spouse

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You could do it if your mortgage and other expenses weren't so high.

Other than mortgage and travel, what other expenses look off?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are living in a $1.2 million home and make over $300,000, based on your posts. Why would you think that you would get aid for private school? You are probably not going to get anything for college.

You have options, you just don’t like those options.

Yet everyone hear says that we will? I had to do it because spouse made it contingent on applying at all.

What option gives us rigorous schools and reasonable commutes with a 4 bedroom SFH? Pretty achievable middle class life.

Silver Spring 20910

So Blair has differentiation starting in 9th grade? If you are in the magnet does that mean your Honors English and Honers Social Studies are magnet only students? Is it a completely separate school within a school? How easy is it to attend magnet if we move there over the summer?

Oh I guess it doesn't matter for our oldest:

"What are you applying to?
The Blair Magnet Program is funded to accept 100 Montgomery County students for its incoming 9th Grade class. Because the Magnet Program's curriculum is interrelated between grades and sequentially different from other high schools, only students entering 9th Grade are accepted. No mid-high school transfer of students is permitted. However, juniors and seniors enrolled in other Montgomery County high schools who meet the prerequisites and can provide their own transportation are eligible for magnet electives that are not offered at their home school."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could do it if your mortgage and other expenses weren't so high.

Other than mortgage and travel, what other expenses look off?

$1500/month groceries is high.
$6000/year for camps is high when your little one isn’t at them?
~$7500/year for kid activities (music + kid activities) is high. When you add 9 months of after care ($2700), that’s more than $10k.
$300/month for mobile phone, even with your parents on the plan, is bonkers high.
$625/month for shopping is high

If you aren’t willing to compromise on travel or mortgage, you need to scrutinize all of the above aggressively to claw back where you can.

Private school is a luxury. If you aren’t willing to make trade offs, it’s not doable on your budget.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You could do it if your mortgage and other expenses weren't so high.

Other than mortgage and travel, what other expenses look off?

$1500/month groceries is high.
$6000/year for camps is high when your little one isn’t at them?
~$7500/year for kid activities (music + kid activities) is high. When you add 9 months of after care ($2700), that’s more than $10k.
$300/month for mobile phone, even with your parents on the plan, is bonkers high.
$625/month for shopping is high

If you aren’t willing to compromise on travel or mortgage, you need to scrutinize all of the above aggressively to claw back where you can.

Private school is a luxury. If you aren’t willing to make trade offs, it’s not doable on your budget.

Cutting only the above expenses by 1/2 gets you $21000 a year. This would still be better placed in your savings ($18700/year in savings as currently budgeted is NOT enough), but it would get you closer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what schools are your kids attending for $5600 for two kids?

We have a similar total income and we spend about $4300/month for one high school tuition at a top school. It's doable but is about our max. It makes zero financial sense but at this point (two years in) it's a done deal. I'm honestly not sure I would do it over again. The education is fabulous (so much better than our subpar public was) but honestly, does one's high school education have to be the best and most challenging and well-rounded as possible? NO. On one hand I think "there is nothing better to spend money on than education?" and on the other I'm like "this is complete insanity and was a giant mistake".

I went to an elite school from a crappy high school, and was a miserable experience that rocked by confidence and really hindered my career since I was behind in college the entire time while my classmates were basically coasting since high school had laid strong foundation.

I see our current high school just not caring about the 'A' students, and in fact again most of my child's cohort of gifted students has left the system.

I can’t +1 this post enough!

[Anonymous]

The Blair magnet is highly selective and the admissions cycle is complete for next fall. You'd be better going to Richard Montgomery where you can take Honors classes starting in 9th grade and choose to enter the IB program in 11th if you qualify. In truth, your kid can get a great education at any FCPS or MCPS school. I'm confused about where you live, though. If you are in DC, then you have school choice. If you are near to DC, APS, FCPS, MCPS, with a short commute to Capitol Hill, your home school is fine. Not perfect, but neither is a private school. I mean sure, we'd all like our kids to be in small classes with great teachers from K-12, but that's not always realistic. Middle school at public is pretty bad IMO, which is why we did private for K-8 and then switched to public in 9th. That might be a good compromise for you. Seriously, though, what district close to Capitol Hill has you living in a place where your zoned high school is truly awful? Are you in PG County?

[Anonymous]

I'd think seriously about homeschooling your kids. Plenty of people do it with both parents working too. You can select the rigor you want them to have and for the middle and high school years there are a lot of options they work through themselves (online or on paper). There are tons of options for classes or online too. Plus, you might be able to save some on their other activities by doing them at "off" times when other kids are in school. Additionally, travel is way cheaper when you don't need to go during school breaks. Lots of gifted kids in the homeschooling world too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:what schools are your kids attending for $5600 for two kids?

We have a similar total income and we spend about $4300/month for one high school tuition at a top school. It's doable but is about our max. It makes zero financial sense but at this point (two years in) it's a done deal. I'm honestly not sure I would do it over again. The education is fabulous (so much better than our subpar public was) but honestly, does one's high school education have to be the best and most challenging and well-rounded as possible? NO. On one hand I think "there is nothing better to spend money on than education?" and on the other I'm like "this is complete insanity and was a giant mistake".

I went to an elite school from a crappy high school, and was a miserable experience that rocked by confidence and really hindered my career since I was behind in college the entire time while my classmates were basically coasting since high school had laid strong foundation.

I see our current high school just not caring about the 'A' students, and in fact again most of my child's cohort of gifted students has left the system.

I can’t +1 this post enough!

PP here, would be interested to hear your experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The Blair magnet is highly selective and the admissions cycle is complete for next fall. You'd be better going to Richard Montgomery where you can take Honors classes starting in 9th grade and choose to enter the IB program in 11th if you qualify. In truth, your kid can get a great education at any FCPS or MCPS school. I'm confused about where you live, though. If you are in DC, then you have school choice. If you are near to DC, APS, FCPS, MCPS, with a short commute to Capitol Hill, your home school is fine. Not perfect, but neither is a private school. I mean sure, we'd all like our kids to be in small classes with great teachers from K-12, but that's not always realistic. Middle school at public is pretty bad IMO, which is why we did private for K-8 and then switched to public in 9th. That might be a good compromise for you. Seriously, though, what district close to Capitol Hill has you living in a place where your zoned high school is truly awful? Are you in PG County?

I haven't provided the details because I fear my spouse will find this thread if someone recognizes me, but we are in APS zoned for Swanson and W-L. Swanson was a train wreck for my kids; they basically were only engaged for 30 minutes a day, spent the rest of class time reading, drawing, sometimes napping -- and that was before the pandemic, and then everything went out the window and it was "no new learning" spring, followed by a year of "won't anyone turn on their camera" or "so-so, are you there" virtual schooling. we left for private and it was night and day, as did almost all of the kids who were in our elementary gifted cohort.

now swanson is apparently undergoing with fights, vandelism in the bathrooms, some kid running around with a taser? and i'm sure the teachers are 100% focused on catching the kids up and readying for SOLs, rather than ensuring children who are on track are engaged and actually spending the day learning. its just a numbers and incentive game; though they may enjoy teaching the interested kids, there are no rewards for pushing them further than required by the standards, but there are penalities if the kids who are struggling don't improve on the SOLs, and there are many more of those struggling students these days. on top of that, APS is going to standards based learning: no grades, re-take tests, continue no homework.

we had planned to return for IB at WL, but once we started digging into it, we realized IB starts at 11th grade, and basically 9th and 10th will be just like our experience in swanson. except the school will now be nearly 3000 kids because they built an addition on the 2000 student school, and even though no high schools were still over crowded after the great exodus, they are still moving over 200 kids/year for the next 3 years to justify spending $30M converting office space to classrooms. so they are making WL an unreasonable size, and the differentiation and rigor we were hoping would finally be starting got kicked down the road until 11th grade.
$7
as for cost, here's how we see it: we are going private for mostly high school (other kids are different and I think will be okay at Swanson as long as the disturbances subside), so $60k * 4 * 3 -> $720k. Let's say we just bought a house $720k more than our $1.2M house -- $1.92M that would not get a similar 4 bedroom SFH in any highly ranked close in FCPS or MCPS high school, even before you consider additional interest costs. House prices have gone up that much, its insane. I wish we had moved to McLean 10 years ago, we thought that APS would be a good school district, but realize now that parents are happy here because anyone who is concerned for academic rigor leaves for FCPS early, despite the longer commutes. APS parents are just way more chill, for better or for worse, but doesn't fit our family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suppose pointing out that there are houses available in the Reston Herndon area that would be less expensive, saving money on the mortgage for more travel and the like, and feed into some great MS and very good HS with AP classes.

There are some excellent public schools in FCPS that provide a great education and experience and you don't have to buy a million dollar home, but they don't have the prestige that I suspect the OP actually wants. I don't know MCPS but I would guess that there are some very good public schools there. But OP has decided that all the public school are awful or will be awful and that the only why her kids can get a great education is to go private.

And that is cool. OPs problem is that her husband knows that she is wrong and sees that the cost of the private schools are not worth it for their family. And people here are saying the same thing. But this isn't about economics, it is about prestige and being able to say that the kids went to school X and that they are so much better then those kids who had to go to public schools and aren't we the best parents ever because we scrimped and saved to pay for our $1.2 million house and private schools for the 3 kids.

Kind of ridiculous.

WTAF I could give a rats tail about prestige. All I want is my kid to be learning my for most of the day in school, have a reasonable size house for my family, and not have a 2 hr commute. HERNDON?? To Capital Hill?? Do you own a private helicopter??

I personally like a lot of FCPS and MCPS, but the ones with decent commute are way way more expensive now and represent taking on debt NOW vs the slow pain of private and college. Neither option is great, though I am surprised we seem to be too poor for private but got zero aid.

No, "all" you want is a great private school, a big house with a short commute, music lessons, expensive camps and activities, a regular house cleaner, a $16k annual vacation budget, a big grocery budget, no second job/side hustle, and your husband to fall in line.

Am I missing anything? 🙄

Your HHI does not support this lifestyle. You need to make some sacrifices and you seem unwilling to consider any of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Blair magnet is highly selective and the admissions cycle is complete for next fall. You'd be better going to Richard Montgomery where you can take Honors classes starting in 9th grade and choose to enter the IB program in 11th if you qualify. In truth, your kid can get a great education at any FCPS or MCPS school. I'm confused about where you live, though. If you are in DC, then you have school choice. If you are near to DC, APS, FCPS, MCPS, with a short commute to Capitol Hill, your home school is fine. Not perfect, but neither is a private school. I mean sure, we'd all like our kids to be in small classes with great teachers from K-12, but that's not always realistic. Middle school at public is pretty bad IMO, which is why we did private for K-8 and then switched to public in 9th. That might be a good compromise for you. Seriously, though, what district close to Capitol Hill has you living in a place where your zoned high school is truly awful? Are you in PG County?

I haven't provided the details because I fear my spouse will find this thread if someone recognizes me, but we are in APS zoned for Swanson and W-L. Swanson was a train wreck for my kids; they basically were only engaged for 30 minutes a day, spent the rest of class time reading, drawing, sometimes napping -- and that was before the pandemic, and then everything went out the window and it was "no new learning" spring, followed by a year of "won't anyone turn on their camera" or "so-so, are you there" virtual schooling. we left for private and it was night and day, as did almost all of the kids who were in our elementary gifted cohort.

now swanson is apparently undergoing with fights, vandelism in the bathrooms, some kid running around with a taser? and i'm sure the teachers are 100% focused on catching the kids up and readying for SOLs, rather than ensuring children who are on track are engaged and actually spending the day learning. its just a numbers and incentive game; though they may enjoy teaching the interested kids, there are no rewards for pushing them further than required by the standards, but there are penalities if the kids who are struggling don't improve on the SOLs, and there are many more of those struggling students these days. on top of that, APS is going to standards based learning: no grades, re-take tests, continue no homework.

we had planned to return for IB at WL, but once we started digging into it, we realized IB starts at 11th grade, and basically 9th and 10th will be just like our experience in swanson. except the school will now be nearly 3000 kids because they built an addition on the 2000 student school, and even though no high schools were still over crowded after the great exodus, they are still moving over 200 kids/year for the next 3 years to justify spending $30M converting office space to classrooms. so they are making WL an unreasonable size, and the differentiation and rigor we were hoping would finally be starting got kicked down the road until 11th grade.
$7
as for cost, here's how we see it: we are going private for mostly high school (other kids are different and I think will be okay at Swanson as long as the disturbances subside), so $60k * 4 * 3 -> $720k. Let's say we just bought a house $720k more than our $1.2M house -- $1.92M that would not get a similar 4 bedroom SFH in any highly ranked close in FCPS or MCPS high school, even before you consider additional interest costs. House prices have gone up that much, its insane. I wish we had moved to McLean 10 years ago, we thought that APS would be a good school district, but realize now that parents are happy here because anyone who is concerned for academic rigor leaves for FCPS early, despite the longer commutes. APS parents are just way more chill, for better or for worse, but doesn't fit our family.

Why not AP into Yorktown? Would Williamsburg be better than Swanson?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Blair magnet is highly selective and the admissions cycle is complete for next fall. You'd be better going to Richard Montgomery where you can take Honors classes starting in 9th grade and choose to enter the IB program in 11th if you qualify. In truth, your kid can get a great education at any FCPS or MCPS school. I'm confused about where you live, though. If you are in DC, then you have school choice. If you are near to DC, APS, FCPS, MCPS, with a short commute to Capitol Hill, your home school is fine. Not perfect, but neither is a private school. I mean sure, we'd all like our kids to be in small classes with great teachers from K-12, but that's not always realistic. Middle school at public is pretty bad IMO, which is why we did private for K-8 and then switched to public in 9th. That might be a good compromise for you. Seriously, though, what district close to Capitol Hill has you living in a place where your zoned high school is truly awful? Are you in PG County?

I haven't provided the details because I fear my spouse will find this thread if someone recognizes me, but we are in APS zoned for Swanson and W-L. Swanson was a train wreck for my kids; they basically were only engaged for 30 minutes a day, spent the rest of class time reading, drawing, sometimes napping -- and that was before the pandemic, and then everything went out the window and it was "no new learning" spring, followed by a year of "won't anyone turn on their camera" or "so-so, are you there" virtual schooling. we left for private and it was night and day, as did almost all of the kids who were in our elementary gifted cohort.

now swanson is apparently undergoing with fights, vandelism in the bathrooms, some kid running around with a taser? and i'm sure the teachers are 100% focused on catching the kids up and readying for SOLs, rather than ensuring children who are on track are engaged and actually spending the day learning. its just a numbers and incentive game; though they may enjoy teaching the interested kids, there are no rewards for pushing them further than required by the standards, but there are penalities if the kids who are struggling don't improve on the SOLs, and there are many more of those struggling students these days. on top of that, APS is going to standards based learning: no grades, re-take tests, continue no homework.

we had planned to return for IB at WL, but once we started digging into it, we realized IB starts at 11th grade, and basically 9th and 10th will be just like our experience in swanson. except the school will now be nearly 3000 kids because they built an addition on the 2000 student school, and even though no high schools were still over crowded after the great exodus, they are still moving over 200 kids/year for the next 3 years to justify spending $30M converting office space to classrooms. so they are making WL an unreasonable size, and the differentiation and rigor we were hoping would finally be starting got kicked down the road until 11th grade.
$7
as for cost, here's how we see it: we are going private for mostly high school (other kids are different and I think will be okay at Swanson as long as the disturbances subside), so $60k * 4 * 3 -> $720k. Let's say we just bought a house $720k more than our $1.2M house -- $1.92M that would not get a similar 4 bedroom SFH in any highly ranked close in FCPS or MCPS high school, even before you consider additional interest costs. House prices have gone up that much, its insane. I wish we had moved to McLean 10 years ago, we thought that APS would be a good school district, but realize now that parents are happy here because anyone who is concerned for academic rigor leaves for FCPS early, despite the longer commutes. APS parents are just way more chill, for better or for worse, but doesn't fit our family.

You don't need a $2 million dollar house. You have a spending issue. You can comfortably afford private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suppose pointing out that there are houses available in the Reston Herndon area that would be less expensive, saving money on the mortgage for more travel and the like, and feed into some great MS and very good HS with AP classes.

There are some excellent public schools in FCPS that provide a great education and experience and you don't have to buy a million dollar home, but they don't have the prestige that I suspect the OP actually wants. I don't know MCPS but I would guess that there are some very good public schools there. But OP has decided that all the public school are awful or will be awful and that the only why her kids can get a great education is to go private.

And that is cool. OPs problem is that her husband knows that she is wrong and sees that the cost of the private schools are not worth it for their family. And people here are saying the same thing. But this isn't about economics, it is about prestige and being able to say that the kids went to school X and that they are so much better then those kids who had to go to public schools and aren't we the best parents ever because we scrimped and saved to pay for our $1.2 million house and private schools for the 3 kids.

Kind of ridiculous.

WTAF I could give a rats tail about prestige. All I want is my kid to be learning my for most of the day in school, have a reasonable size house for my family, and not have a 2 hr commute. HERNDON?? To Capital Hill?? Do you own a private helicopter??

I personally like a lot of FCPS and MCPS, but the ones with decent commute are way way more expensive now and represent taking on debt NOW vs the slow pain of private and college. Neither option is great, though I am surprised we seem to be too poor for private but got zero aid.

No, "all" you want is a great private school, a big house with a short commute, music lessons, expensive camps and activities, a regular house cleaner, a $16k annual vacation budget, a big grocery budget, no second job/side hustle, and your husband to fall in line.

Am I missing anything? 🙄

Your HHI does not support this lifestyle. You need to make some sacrifices and you seem unwilling to consider any of them.

I’m really curious? What camps are cheap? Our county camps are $400/week? We only do rec sports, do your kids not do any activities? Stay home alone all summer by themselves when you are at work?

Half our travel budget is visiting family — I personally would be fine reducing that but they can’t travel to us.

Big house? Uh no. Ifs okay, but no one would call our house big.

[Anonymous]

I honestly believe that private is not worth the financial sacrifices you would have to make, OP. You would be better off keeping them in public and supplementing as needed. There are plenty of tutoring and online options that can accelerate. Also, life can throw other financial curveballs. You don't want to be stretched so thin that you can't be resilient through a health concern, weather damage, etc.

Remember that a LOT of private school $ goes to pretty buildings and other aspects that are pleasant but not necessarily moving the needle on academic needle. A lot of private parents who have gone through the college admissions cycle are regretting the sacrifices if you go to that thread. "Value" is so personal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suppose pointing out that there are houses available in the Reston Herndon area that would be less expensive, saving money on the mortgage for more travel and the like, and feed into some great MS and very good HS with AP classes.

There are some excellent public schools in FCPS that provide a great education and experience and you don't have to buy a million dollar home, but they don't have the prestige that I suspect the OP actually wants. I don't know MCPS but I would guess that there are some very good public schools there. But OP has decided that all the public school are awful or will be awful and that the only why her kids can get a great education is to go private.

And that is cool. OPs problem is that her husband knows that she is wrong and sees that the cost of the private schools are not worth it for their family. And people here are saying the same thing. But this isn't about economics, it is about prestige and being able to say that the kids went to school X and that they are so much better then those kids who had to go to public schools and aren't we the best parents ever because we scrimped and saved to pay for our $1.2 million house and private schools for the 3 kids.

Kind of ridiculous.

WTAF I could give a rats tail about prestige. All I want is my kid to be learning my for most of the day in school, have a reasonable size house for my family, and not have a 2 hr commute. HERNDON?? To Capital Hill?? Do you own a private helicopter??

I personally like a lot of FCPS and MCPS, but the ones with decent commute are way way more expensive now and represent taking on debt NOW vs the slow pain of private and college. Neither option is great, though I am surprised we seem to be too poor for private but got zero aid.

No, "all" you want is a great private school, a big house with a short commute, music lessons, expensive camps and activities, a regular house cleaner, a $16k annual vacation budget, a big grocery budget, no second job/side hustle, and your husband to fall in line.

Am I missing anything? 🙄

Your HHI does not support this lifestyle. You need to make some sacrifices and you seem unwilling to consider any of them.

I’m really curious? What camps are cheap? Our county camps are $400/week? We only do rec sports, do your kids not do any activities? Stay home alone all summer by themselves when you are at work?

Half our travel budget is visiting family — I personally would be fine reducing that but they can’t travel to us.

Big house? Uh no. Ifs okay, but no one would call our house big.

Ok so the honest bet is that you aren’t willing (or can’t, at least in your opinion).
THAT’S OK! Really! But it does mean that private school is not affordable for your family. That’s also ok! Save for college instead. That’s a much better alternative than setting your kids up with debt.